Kelly Clarkson Album News

Kelly Clarkson has been hard at work in the studio and is nearing completion on her fifth, currently untitled album (slated to come out in early 2011). On Twitter this week, she shared a few details about the project:

Just finished up w/Jason Halbert[Kelly's musical director, keyboard player, and songwriting collaborator] in the studio. It's one of my favorites and it's called "you still won't know what it's like".

We've almost completed the album. We're gonna have way too many songs to pick from ....and that part sucks :(

my favorite song off of the new album is "You Love Me"

There is definitely one song that could have been on My December and it's also a duet ....and I'm not saying who yet :)

There are actually 2 duets on the new record & I have at some point sang w/both of these artists before but not on record.[Regarding the album release date] Probably not till the beginning of the year but my single will come out before that. It takes too long. I'm bored & ready 2 tour:)

Any guesses for the duets? Kelly previously said that one is with a male and one is with a female. Other signs point to the male being Chris Daughtry (for example, they were spotted in a studio together with a producer that has worked with each of them in the past; they recorded a duet for Kelly's last album – All I Ever Wanted – that was left off the final tracklist; and they sang a live duet at a recent Daughtry concert).

Options for the female duet range from a number of former Idol contestants (such as Fantasia, Jordin Sparks, and Carrie Underwood) to Jill & Kate (Kelly's background singers and friends) to Melissa Etheridge, Michelle Branch, or even (farfetched possibilities like) Shirley Manson from Garbage and Debbie Harry from Blondie.